How to keep bees for profit/Chapter 12

SWARMING is nature's method of increase,
but it is so uncertain and this
with the possible loss of swarms emerging
during the beekeeper's absence, has led professional
beekeepers to adopt artificial methods
of increase that are absolutely under the
control of the operator. Generally speaking,
natural swarming is a very uncertain dependence
for increase, as there are many years
when it will hardly more than make up for
winter losses, and he who would increase his
colonies materially must adopt methods of
division that will give him the desired number
of extra colonies.

When it comes to a matter of simply doubling
the number of colonies, division is comparatively
easy and safe even in the hands of
an amateur, but when the increase is rapid,
involving a splitting up of a ten-frame colony
into five or ten little colonies, great care should
be used or failure is sure to follow.
The late Mr. E. W. Alexander of Delanson,
New York (than whom there was no better
beekeeper in the world), had a method of
doubling his colonies for increase, by which
he did away with all possibility of loss of
brood, and was still able to secure a good surplus
at the same time, whereas under most
of the methods followed, increase was carried
on at the expense of the honey crop, for it is
almost an axiom with beekeepers, The
greater the increase, the less honey for that
year.

It can be readily seen that in the splitting
up of colonies for increase there would be no
surplus gathered, as each of the divisions
would require the entire season to draw the
frames of foundation out to full combs, and
get strong for winter quarters.

While in rapid increase there is an entire
loss of the honey crop, yet the increase of one
colony to five or even ten would represent
an increased equipment many times the
value of the surplus that would have been
gathered by the colony had it been run for
honey. There is, therefore, a gain and not a
loss, though the gain is in bees and not in
honey.

Mr. Alexander's method of course meant
the increase of but one more colony for each
strong colony in hand, but as it carried with
it the assurance of a surplus at the same time,
it is a most excellent plan to follow where
a rapid increase is not desired.

In Gleanings in Bee Culture, an illustrated
bee journal published by the A. I. Root Co.
of Medina, Ohio, we find in the issue of one
of the months of 1906, page 423, the method
outlined as follows :

When your colonies are strong enough
to swarm naturally, and you wish to divide
them so as to make two from one, go to the
colony you wish to divide; lift it from its
stand and put in its place a hive containing
frames of comb or foundation, the same as
you would put the swarm in providing it had
just swarmed. Now remove the centre comb
from your new hive, and put in its place a
frame of brood, either from the hive you wish
to divide or some other colony that can spare
one, and be sure you find the queen and put
her on this frame of brood in the new hive;
also look it over very carefully to see that it
contains no eggs or larvae in any queen cells.
If it does, destroy them. Now put a queenexcluding
honey-board on top of this new
hive that contains the queen and frame of
brood with their empty combs, then set your
full queenless colony on top of the excluder;
put the empty comb or frame of foundation
into the body from which you took the frame
of brood; and close the upper hive except the
entrance they have through the excluder into
the hive below. Leave them in this way
about five days, then look over the combs
carefully, and destroy any larvae you may
find in the queen cells in the top body, unless
they are of a good strain of bees that
you care to breed from, for they frequently
start the rearing of queens above the excluder
very soon after their queen has been
placed below the excluder. If so, you had
better separate them at once; but if they
have not started any queen cells above, then
leave them together ten or eleven days, during
which time the queen will get a fine
lot of brood started in the lower hive, and
every egg and particle of larva that was in the
old hive on top will have matured, so it will
be capped over and saved; then separate
them, putting the old hive on a new stand.

It will then be full of young bees mostly, and
capped brood, and in about twenty-four hours
they will accept a ripe cell, a virgin, or laying
queen, as they will then realize that they are
hopelessly queenless. I would advise you to
give them a laying queen, as I never like to
keep my full colonies for even a day longer
without a laying queen than I can help. In
this way you have two strong colonies from
one, as you have not lost a particle of brood
nor checked the laying of your queen; and
with me it almost wholly prevents swarming.
This is the way we have made our increase
for several years, and we like it much better
than any other way we have ever tried. In
doing so you keep all your colonies strong
during the whole summer, and it is the strong
colonies that count in giving us our surplus.
The mere fact of having a large number
of colonies does not amount to much unless
they are strong in bees and are well cared for
at all times. This is a fact that many have
sadly overlooked ; and when the season comes
to a close, giving them a small surplus, they
feel disappointed and lay the fault on many
things that have had but little to do with
their failure.

In making your increase in the above way,
your new swarm on the old stand is in fine
shape for a clamp of sections, as it has a large
working force backed up by having its hive
nearly full of brood, and but little honey,
as the bees have been in the habit of storing
their honey in the old hive that was on top.
They will soon go to work in the sections,
with no intention of swarming. Then the
old hive that has been set away can usually
spare fifteen or twenty pounds of honey,
which can be taken with the extractor, giving
its new queen plenty of room to lay, and in a
short time will be one of your best colonies,
with no desire to swarm.

Now, if you have done your duty by your
bees since taking them from their winter
quarters, as I have recommended above,
keeping them snug and warm, and feeding
them a little thin warm syrup nearly every day
for the first thirty days after they have begun
to fly, you can have two good strong
colonies in the place of one, ready to commence
work on your clover harvest, which
will probably come about June 15.

From an extensive experience along this
line I find I can get nearly twice the amount
of surplus by dividing as above stated, over
what I was able to acquire either by letting
them go undivided or dividing in a way that
caused the loss of a greater part of their brood.
This losing of brood we must guard against
at all times if we expect to secure a fine surplus.
It costs both time and honey to produce
it, and it is the principal factor in obtaining
those strong colonies that give us tons of honey,
Far too many beekeepers think that the
value of their apiary consists in the number
of colonies they keep. This is so only to a
certain extent ; for if you had one thousand
colonies and they were all weak in bees, so
they would give you no surplus, they would
not be worth as much as one good strong
colony that would give you two hundred or
three hundred pounds of honey.

Several years ago one of my sons bought
nine colonies of bees in common box hives,
about the first of June. He brought them
home and transferred them at once to movableframe
hives, and in about three weeks divided
them, making twenty colonies of the nine he
bought, using some queen cells I had on hand
for his surplus colonies. He then attended to
those twenty colonies so they were all strong
at the commencement of our buckwheat harvest.
I then loaned him twenty hives of empty
combs to put on top of his colonies to extract
from. He took two thousand eight hundred
and forty-nine pounds of extracted honey
from those nine colonies and their increase,
and left them in good condition so that every
one came out the next spring in fine order.
Another son, the same season, took one
colony, divided into three, and received three
hundred and forty-seven pounds of extracted
honey. They also came through the following
winter in good condition. I speak of
these cases simply to show that it is not necessary
to keep hundreds of colonies in order to
get a little honey. If you will keep only
strong colonies and give them the best of care,
you will soon find both pleasure and profit
in bee-keeping.

Now, in regard to the criticism on this way
of making our increase, which has been published
in "Gleanings." I find that nearly all
who have made a failure of the method have
taken colonies that had already made some
preparations for swarming by having eggs or
larvae in their queen cells, as did J. D. Ronan,
of Chesterville, Mississippi, and also Don
Mills, of Highland, Michigan.

During the summer I received a few letters
from persons who had made a failure of this
method in much the same way. Some had
taken colonies that had capped queen cells
in their hives at the time they put the queen
in the under hive, and, of course, they swarmed
in a day or two. I cannot see that these
failures are any proof of fault in the method.
When we work with our bees we must always
use some discretion in such matters. If a
colony is very strong in bees, it certainly requires
different management from that given
to one rather weak.

The above plan is a most excellent one;
I have used it with unfailing success, and the
beginner will make no mistake in adopting
it where a rapid increase is not desired ; it will
result in a doubling of the colonies and a
goodly surplus at the same time
There are other times, however, when the
beekeeper desires to increase his colonies
several fold, and if great care is exercised, it
is possible to increase the number of colonies
to ten times the original number in one season ;
but one had better wait a season or two for
experience before going in for a wholesale
multiplication of colonies. Personally, I was
able in one season to increase ten colonies
up to one hundred, and, by a little feeding
which will be described later on, succeeded in
building the one hundred colonies up to strong
swarms for winter quarters, and the following
spring had one hundred prime colonies
ready for the honey flow, all made from but
ten colonies the season before. The increased
value of the apiary was from $100 to $1000,
and though there was no honey surplus gathered
by the increase the season the division
took place, yet the increased value of the
apiary was many times what the surplus from
the original ten colonies would have amounted
to had they not been divided.
Let us suppose that you have a good strong
ten-frame colony of bees, strong in bees and
brood, and you wish to increase it to five
colonies by division so that the apiary at the
close of the season will be five times its original
size.

About the last of April, if the colony is
strong, and the weather permits, and honey
is coming in rapidly, have on hand five extra
hives all complete with full sheets of foundation
wired in the frames, and above all four
extra queens in their mailing cages that have
been secured in advance from some breeder.
You are now ready for the division.
Toward evening after all the bees are
in, open the strong colony, and when you
have found the frame with the queen, lift
it gently from its hive and place it in one of
the empty hives, removing two of the frames
of foundation from the empty hive, in order to
make room.

Then lift another frame of bees and brood
from the strong colony with all adhering;
bees and place it in the new hive beside the
frame that has the queen, and when they are
in place, put on the lid, and close the entrance
with a strip of wood nailed on. The
new swarm, or nucleus, is now ready to be
carried and placed on the stand it is to permanently
occupy.
This new hive will contain two frames of
bees and brood with queen and eight frames
of full sheets of foundation.

Now take another empty hive and set aside
two of its frames of foundation, and in their
place put two more frames of brood and bees
from the strong colony. As these two frames
of brood and bees and all others taken will be
without queens, take one of the little cages
having a queen, and, tearing off the piece of
cardboard from the end of the cage holding
the feed, insert the little cage with the queen,
the feed end down, between the frames of
brood and bees in the new hive; push the
frames close together, and, closing the entrance
of the hive, place it on the stand it is to occupy.
In about two days the imprisoned bees
will eat a passageway through the feed to
liberate the queen, and by the time she is liberated
she will have acquired the odor of the
colony and be accepted, whereas if she had
been liberated at once at time of division, the
bees would have perceived her to be a stranger
and killed her. Treat the remaining empty
hives the same way, and when all have two
frames of bees and brood with a new queen
you will have five little colonies all ready
to get to work as soon as we take away the
strip of wood from their entrances.

The original hive that was divided should
be left on its old stand with the last two
frames of bees and brood and the cage containing
the queen. (See chapter on "Queen
Rearing" in reference to introducing queens.)
In three days you can remove the block from
each entrance, and, using the same entrance
strip, so tack it to the entrance of the hives,
that there will be a small outlet about a half
inch wide. Place a piece of board slanting
from the top of the hive to the ground
so that the bees when coming out will mark
their new location and not return to the old
stand they occupied before the division.
If this rapid increase is done early in the
season, and it should be done early to give
the little colonies the entire season in which
to build up, the weather will be sufficiently
cool, and the number of bees in each hive so
few that there will be no danger of the bees
smothering while imprisoned, which certainly
would occur if a strong colony were so imprisoned
during warm weather.

In about a week the little colonies can be
opened and the cages taken out, and if you
find the queen, or even eggs a day or so old,
you can know that she has been accepted.

There may be rare cases where the queen will
be destroyed, but this will not occur more than
in one case out of a hundred, and when her
loss is discovered, a new queen should be
introduced at once by the method described.
Of course it is understood that a caged
queen is not to be given to the first division
that was made, as that nucleus has the original
queen given to them when the division was made.
If you desire to increase one colony up to
ten, the method of procedure is identically
the same, and differs only in that you give
each empty hive but one frame of bees and
brood instead of two.

A few days after the division has been made
it is well to examine each nucleus, and when
it is found that the bees have begun to work
on the frame of foundation next to their
frame of bees and brood, it can be lifted out
and inserted between the two frames of brood,
as this will facilitate its rapid completion.
In this way the completed combs can be
spread every few days until all the sheets
of foundation are drawn out to full combs.

If the honey flow should cease before the
sheets of foundation are fully drawn out, each
little colony should be fed daily about a half
pint of syrup made from mixing equal parts
of good granulated sugar and boiling water,
as this has the same effect upon them as
though the natural flow continued, and will
force them to work out of season, build good
combs, and rear a numerous brood.

A good feeder for this purpose is the Boardman
entrance feeder, which has a quart jar
with perforated cap inserted in a block of
wood which can be placed at the entrance
safe from robber bees, and the glass jar enables
the operator to tell at a glance how rapidly
the feed is being taken up. Other feeders
will be described in the chapter on "Feeding."
The danger attending very rapid increase
is that the operator will either make his divisions
before the colony is strong, or else will
defer it so late in the season that the little
colony will not have time in which to build up
before cold weather. Personally I have made
divisions as late as August 1, but this necessitated
constant feeding and great care, and
the addition to the nucleus of an occasional
frame of sealed brood from some strong colony.
Late increase, however, is only successful in
the hands of an expert; the course of wisdom
for the beginner is to make the increase early,
and as the season progresses, if there are other
strong colonies in the apiary that have not
been divided, it is an excellent thing to encourage
the struggling nuclei by giving them
a frame of sealed brood every once in a while
from one of the strong colonies. Be sure that
you do not give them the queen from the strong
hive, or you will make your strong hive queenless
and possibly sacrifice a good queen, as the
little swarm will be sure to kill any additional
queen that may be accidentally given them.
The empty space in the strong colony from
which the frame of sealed brood is taken can
be filled by a frame of foundation taken from
the little swarm, after all adhering bees have
been shaken in front of the hive to which
they belong.

The reason we give the little colony sealed
brood is because such sealed brood does not
require attention and feeding by the bees, for
if we gave the weak nucleus unsealed brood,
there might not be sufficient bees present to
properly care for it, with a consequent loss
of brood and bees. When the brood is once
sealed over, all that it requires is the proper
temperature of about ninety-eight degrees to
insure its hatching, and when these frames
hatch in the little colony, it is astonishing
what a multitude of bees will result to the
colony to which the frames were given.

The above methods are the very best, and
have proved their worth over and over, but,
as has been said, the Alexander plan is the
best for the novice. As experience is gained,
rapid increase can be resorted to; but in any
case keep your eyes on the increase, and give
them all the encouragement possible in the
matter of slight stimulative feeding, and an
occasional frame of sealed brood if conditions
demand it.

If the increase is started early, and the flow
of honey prolonged, it is possible to make
rapid increase without either feeding, or addition
of sealed brood, but at all events watch
the colonies closely, and meet any emergency
that may arise.